Greece and Egypt signed a deal in August 2020 and Egypt, France, Greece, the UAE and Cyprus condemned Turkey’s provocative actions at sea in May 2020.
The Jerusalem Post-By SETH J. FRANTZMAN
Israel, Greece and Cyprus are developing a pipeline since a deal signed last year and they are part of a gas forum in the Eastern Mediterranean. Turkey sought to upset all these relationships in December 2019 by signing a deal with Libya, reaching across all the peaceful agreements that Israel, Cyprus, Greece and Egypt have, to grab greater control of the sea.
Then Turkey shifted gears from threats to spreading false news stories. In engineered stories in the Israeli media in which Cyprus was disappeared from Mediterranean water and economic zone rights, and Turkey and Israel would have a magic deal over maritime borders. Israel rejected the deal. Israel is not Turkey’s neighbor across the sea, despite the maps that Turkey tried to present which ignored Cyprus.
Now Turkey has done the same thing by trying to implicate Egypt. This comes after the Philia forum in Athens where it was clear how Egypt, Greece, Cyprus, France and other countries are growing more closely into an alliance system of shared interests. Turkey uses its pro-government media in English to spread its latest story. “Turkey could sign deal with Egypt on maritime zone,” says Anadolu, a state run media arm. “Greece worried as Egypt acts in line with Turkish EEZ in EastMed,” says Daily Sabah, another pro-government organ. “Is Egypt warming up to Turkey’s proposition in the Eastern Mediterranean,” asks state-controlled TRT in Turkey.
There is no evidence that Turkey and Egypt could sign a maritime deal and it would be odd for Egypt to suddenly reverse years of course being on course with Greece and Cyprus and get involved in a deal that negates the Cyprus economic claims and harms Greece. Turkey’s odd approach, similar to the December approach to Israel, is to have the government just tell the media that this is happening, and they all report it as fact, and then the idea becomes “reality” without anything having ever happened. The same thing was done to try to dupe Israel and Israeli media into an imaginary deal that never had a chance of happening.
Turkey is talking “reconciliation,” but most countries with long experience being threatened, slandered, insulted and even terrorized by Ankara’s current ruling party regime, know that there is no reconciliation. This is because Turkey only floats these ideas to get what it wants. In each “deal” it secures a huge claim to the Mediterranean far beyond its rights and it tramples on Cyprus and Greece. Egypt and Israel would get nothing out of any deals with Turkey because they already have their economic zones established. They don’t need Turkey to agree to them because they have Greece and Cyprus much closer off shore. That means Turkey floats these ideas to lay claim to waters it has no rights to, and gives nothing in return. France knows this “reconciliation” game as well and has also asked for Turkey to actually change and do things, not just say “reconciliation” and continue along the same path. Turkey’s hosting of Hamas terrorists and recent threats to “liberate” Jerusalem from Israeli control are a non-starter. Similarly Turkey has threatened Egypt’s government. This is not forgotten.